Searching the Illinois State Board of Education’s 2015 End of Year Discipline Report, we have put together a list of the 25 school districts that most often use out-of-school suspensions and expulsions. To avoid penalizing large districts that generally have more suspensions and expulsions due to high enrollment, we found the suspension and expulsion rates by dividing the number of incidents by district enrollment from the ISBE’s 2014-2015 Illinois Report Card.

While it would be fascinating to see an explanation of why they feel they have to use so many suspensions and if they’re over-using the punishments and whether there are any specific student demographic trends, anyone who wants to be a full-time, year-round teacher in those schools, please raise your hands.

Clearly teacher pay and tenure are the problem here. If we spent less money on teachers that clearly don’t do their jobs then we would have more money for qualified high paid administrators at the State Board of Ed. which of course would solve all of our problems.

That percentage is worthless. Would be more telling to know the number of times a student can be suspended in one year before expulsion, and otherwise find an average number of those that are suspended multiple times. Showing half of a student population being suspended is misleading. Not a good trend, to be sure, but not really useful in seeing true percentages of kids that are suspended.

Rich has it upside-down here; Instead of thinking of the teachers how about the kids ? The current union dominated education system has utterly failed these students. And instead of criticizing the system - we get an attack on those looking for another way. These are exactly the the type of districts where parents are craving for the ability to choose which school to send their kids to and to be able to ask the schools to compete based on outcomes.

Regarding the new IPI poster boy, he appears from the photo to at least be in his 40s. So after serving four years in the Marines directly out of high school, he was denied for union membership. He would have been in his early 20s at the time. Basically, IPI is highlighting a decision that happened well over two decades ago to make their point about policy today. Typical.

Now if you could please do the same analysis for Chicago Public Schools, including the charter schools….that is, if you can pry the data out of their hands without them claiming that it’s “proprietary” information.
And while you’re at it, please find out how a publicly-funded operation has any “proprietary” information.

ESL, Venice, Madison & Cahokia are all neighboring districts in the Metro East. They’re all high crime, high poverty communities full of single (or no) parent homes. They’re also terrible school districts full of corruption. These numbers come as no surprise to me.

CPS has been pressuring schools to lower suspension numbers for 4-5 years. I think they’re probably extremely low. This isn’t a good thing because they haven’t replaced suspensions with anything else. One of CTU’s demands is to have somebody in charge of restorative justice with requisite training at every school. This person would be an administrator and not a part of the union.

When CPS switched to a restorative justice model, it did so half way. Restorative justice seems like the best discipline system. It also seems like the most expensive, time consuming, and requiring the most training. In other words, probably doomed at CPS.

I believe in most CPS schools, restorative justice means go hang out with the clerk for 15 minutes, then go back to class and say you’re sorry.

I’m really not advocating for more suspensions, but a school has to replace them with something else. Replacing suspensions with pleading with the student to behave isn’t an acceptable solution.

From the CapFax Feb. 4 2015,
[Rauner] is expected to call on unions with state contracts to include more minorities in their apprenticeship programs, and require work crews on taxpayer-funded construction projects to “reflect the diversity in the surrounding area,” according to a Rauner aide. The move has the political benefit of tweaking unions while also appealing to minority voters.

What do teachers unions (or one’s anti view of them) have to do with this?

If the point is that teachers in these situations are rather helpless, and normal evaluation methods are likely inapplicable, I would tend to agree. These communities have absolutely failed their youth, and to expect a teacher to have some transformative effect from 8-3 is comical.

Teachers unions are still a problem, but irrelevant in these worst of the worst cases.

Looking at the longer list I have a bit of an idea what is going on–districts that have faced significant demographic change in the last decade seem to be present. So it isn’t just poverty (though ESL is a case of that), but demographic change and the difficulty in managing that change. The central Illinois districts are fairly high and several of those are becoming more diverse and facing higher poverty rates.

Ugh. My mom taught in a public grade school in Rockford, and every single day one of her fellow teachers sent a child (the same child) out in the hall for the day. Every single day. I wonder how much he learned that year. (And ten points to the person who guesses that child’s race…)

I’ve always opposed out of school suspensions. it hurts more than it helps. Put the kids in the “Breakfast club” or increase public service requirements. Most high schools require at least 25 public service hours to graduate. Make these kids spend their Saturdays (starting at 7am) picking up trash along the roads for 8 hours instead of giving them a free day off.

That IPI report is likely a complete lie. The Department of Labor prohibits racial preference/discrimination in apprenticeship programs. It’s not even a characteristic that is taken into the application process. This is just a case of “This guy at the bar said…”

In cps’ defense they do publish the suspension & expulsion data. It is on a spreadsheet on their website under the school data section. Also, when you search on the website under a specific school the suspension numbers are under the report section.

Steve’s complaints about Union Membership reminds me of Cruz/Rubio complaints about immigration. I enjoyed the line about the “freedom to negotiate”, as if tradesmen are MLB pitchers.

Suspensions should drop once Public Act 099-0456 kicks in, but keep in mind high schoolers are fighting, distributing photos of underage girls, and coming to school under the influence. Do you want these kids coming back to class 24 hours later?

I’m kind of at a loss on what this has to do with teacher’s unions. The decisions to suspend are made by non-union administration. I know of no school district where teachers have the authority to suspend.

What a world we live in. Expulsions that may have at one time listed in the dozens now are in the thousands. By the bye, while I’m not a fan of teacher’s unions, the failure of schools should not be laid on the (union) teachers, or the school district’s tax base. If there is a gross failure, it traces to the student’s homes. Gold plated schools and expensive teachers can’t educate kids whose families don’t give a whit.

I would be interested to know more about the kids being suspended in these districts vs. the kids managing NOT to be suspended. SOMETHING is working for at least SOME of the kids or, in reverse, something is causing some kids to fail badly while their classmates manage to succeed. Sad state of affairs to be sure.

“How many of these kids ended up in a “Safe School Program”? I know the Madison County ROE runs a program for expelled kids. I believe the districts pay for their students plus transportation costs.”

In Peoria County, the “safe school” (which serves all districts in the county) typically fills up by October or November. There simply isn’t adequate capacity for student needs. The funding isn’t there.

I think any school has higher stats than we might be accustomed to from our own childhoods. reason: parents are too permissive these days and often leave any sense of discipline to others. and then complain about their perfect children, how could that possibly have happened? a recent discussion with a college coach led to the amazing comment that many of the athletes have never heard anything other than “you are awesome and perfect.” and then the kids get crushed by criticism. there is no sense of discipline in lots of ways in lots of neighborhoods. kids think they rule.

If you can’t make your point without blindly guessing at my background, you don’t have a point. A situation where the teacher has to decide between throwing a kid out of their classroom and teaching everyone is bad for both. Go ahead and whine about teachers’ unions again and make up some fanfic about me, but it won’t change the fact that students and teachers are inextricably linked, and the people who try to separate the two clearly aren’t helping either.

” a recent discussion with a college coach led to the amazing comment that many of the athletes have never heard anything other than “you are awesome and perfect.” and then the kids get crushed by criticism. ”

This complaint, if it is valid, appears to be about wealthy suburban districts sending lots of kids to colleges, and therefore not really applicable to any of the schools on this list.

It has been a while since I filled out these reports but schools used to report the number of students and the number of days the students were suspended; 1-3, 3-5, 5-10. I believe that suspension numbers reflect the total number of suspension days not the total number of students suspended. Even at this rate I would agree the number of students suspended around the state is too high. A majority of the students being suspended fall in the “other” instead of one of the delineated categories such as violence, weapons or drugs. I would be interested what infractions are getting these students an out of school suspension.
I also find the number of expelled students who do not receive any educational opportunities troubling. The Regional Safe School Programs were developed to provide districts and parents an option for expelled students to continue to receive an education and return to their home district after the expulsion on-tract to graduate. Why this option is not being utilized by districts should be looked into.